The movie I, Robot starring Will Smith is the first thing that pops into my head when I try to think of a contemporary robot story. I can't say for certain that it was the first robot movie that I saw as a child but it definitely left an impression on me. The whole movie is an interesting take on what robots are and what their role in our society should be. All of the robots in this movie are technically androids because they have all been given a human-like appearance, but in a sense they are not even robots either, more like AI. They do follow three basic laws that are put in place to protect us and they are supposed to follow commands from humans, in that sense they are robots. They do, however, possess the capacity to make decisions on their own and they do eventually disobey their programming (not entirely disobey it was more of a semantics thing).
The machines in this movie are a product of our time in the sense that they this is very likely how they would be used if we ever possessed the technology to build them. They would do all of our tasks for us and hopefully make our lives easier overall. They also reflect the time though in the sense that the revolution that ends up taking place is a very real fear in our society and the reason that many are anxious to move forward with this technology. The fear of the machines lies in the fact that if they were to decide that they have outgrown us, nothing could stop them. They have the same intelligence as they do but also have a complete lack of empathy or any of the emotions that make humans human.
An important thing to consider when dealing with an AI is the fact that if they exist, what does it mean to be human? They possess the same mental capacity as us and many believe that what makes human beings unique is our brains. If a machine like these were to be created it would take away the one thing that makes humans special which means that being human is no longer its own special group. By the end of this particular movie, the main machine realizes that it was given the gift of free will and what even seems like emotions. That being said, if a machine could possess those qualities there would be no question that being a human being has lost its uniqueness.
I'm glad someone wrote about I Robot. The whole time I was reading RUR I couldnt stop thinking off all the parallels between the two. I like what you are saying about what it means to be human. I think it is impossible to define the robot as something that is manufactured because biological organisms are also in a sense manufactured. The natural world produces life, and life produces automatons. Perhaps they can be examined from a Darwinian lense, with the robot as our mutation that may (or may not) out-compete us for resources.
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